IN THE MORNING, we depart a realm of hazelnuts, bound for a land of grapes. We’re riding from Cortemilia to a lunch in Barbaresco, the source of one of Italy’s greatest wines. Like its noble brother Barolo, Barbaresco is made from the nebbiolo grape, which has proven successful only here in Piedmont, southeast of the Alps.

Piedmont, or Piemonte, means “foot of the mountains,” and as that implies, we have some hills to tackle before gustation can commence. First is a climb of 800 feet to the town of Castino, followed by a switchback descent to the rushing Belbo River. Next, a tiny road that could pass for a driveway takes us 1,000 feet skyward in fewer than 3 miles.

Panting uphill past precipitous vineyards, barking dogs, and tractors piloted by octogenerians in undershirts, I wonder how Heather and Larry manage to find roads like this. Is it an instinct for untrammelled bucolia, or is it simply sadism?

The grade levels out as we pass the chapels of San Donato and Madonna d’Annunziata (S. and Mad. on the map), and we find ourselves in Mango, a hilltop village with a wine shop in a castle. Unlike most of the previous week, with weather that had been hot and hazy, today is spectacularly clear and crisp, with views that extend to the snowcapped Alps. Ignoring the stares of men massing for their Sunday get-together in the piazza, we click-clack in our cycling shoes into the enoteca; in addition to hundreds of local wines, the place contains a selection of grappe, nuts, oils, books, and maps. After we make a few purchases, the shop owner insists that we repair to his patio, following us with a plate of antipasti and a complimentary­ bottle of Moscato d’Asti, the famous sparkling dessert wine from this area.

I’m beginning to wonder what happened to the idea of lunch.

Photo: Jered Gruber

Nothing, as it turns out: After an hour at the enoteca, we pedal about 20 minutes to Barbaresco and pull into Ristorante Rabaya, where we’re soon surrounded by prosciutto-and-liver pâté, roasted duck with balsamic dressing, ricotta cheese wrapped in shaved asparagus, risotto made with Barbaresco, agnolotti del plin (“pinched” ravioli) with butter and sage sauce, tajarin (Piedmontese for tagliarini, or thin, light pasta made with a million egg yolks), a Grasso Langhe chardonnay and a deep-purple dolcetto made just down the street. By the time we leave the restaurant, it’s after three o’clock—and we still have 43 miles to ride, with dinner scheduled for eight p.m.

As I embark for Guarene—next in the seemingly endless series of beautiful hilltop villages—it’s clear that I’m being indoctrinated with CycleItalia’s ­official motto: Pedale forte, mangia bene—“Ride hard, eat well.” Some of my friends at home consider this my ­personal credo, but they have no idea. Compared to a trip with Larry and Heather, my normal riding-and-eating regimen feels like a spin around the block combined with spartan fasting.

I FIRST MET Heather Reid and Larry Theobald in 1992, when they were working as a translator and a driver/mechanic for a tour company that follows pro bike races. I’d hooked up with them as a journalist for the second half of the Giro d’Italia—a memorable tour of northern Italy, including the Alps, Dolomites, Piedmontese wine country, and Lake Garda. Tailored for serious American cyclists, that trip had, unfortunately, lacked a thing or two in the cultural and culinary departments; after one meal, I’d remarked that, “An enophile doesn’t know the meaning of depression until he asks a tableful of people, ‘Who wants wine?’ and nobody raises a hand.”

As it turned out, my frustrations were shared by Larry and Heather.­ In 1998 they founded their own company: CycleItalia, which aims to combine serious cycling with serious food and wine appreciation. Their online newsletter, La Gazzetta dello CycleItalia, and their daily ride notes, contain information on local cuisine, history, and architecture. They fine-tune their trips to take advantage of changing seasons, local fare, weather and ­other ­factors, so trips might change slightly from year to year, but all of them are true to the founding ethos. The enterprise consists solely of Larry and Heather­—the latter a one-time collegiate track-cycling champion and author of several books on the philosophy of sport.

Photo: Jered Gruber

Photo: Jered Gruber

“I love my job as a professor, so this can’t be something that wears me out in the summer,” Heather explains. “It has to be fun, and to be fun it has to stay small. On these trips, we get a nice, self-selected clientele of interesting people who want to talk about something other than what gear they use.”

CycleItalia’s home base in Piedmont­ is the Hotel Ariotto in Terruggia, a profoundly quiet rural village about 15 miles from Alessandria. When I arrived, the only sound I heard was that of a distant tractor—accompanied, every hour, by chimes from the church bell tower. At dusk these notes were augmented by a lilting song, reminding the townspeople­ that it was dinnertime, and spurring my own initiation into CycleItalia’s culinary program. When we went in to dinner, we were greeted with grissini—hand-rolled breadsticks wrapped in linen napkins, a Piedmontese specialty. They were followed by ­zucchini with garlic, dried beef with grapefruit, robiola cheese with black truffles (the world’s most famous white truffles are found in autumn), risotto with mushrooms and more truffles, and lasagne with radicchio and béchamel sauce.

“You have to pace yourself,” Heather advised. As we finished off a dark, concentrated dolcetto called Briccolero, our waitress—a sweet, funny young woman named Marina, who was wearing­ a black dress with white lace shoulders—unveiled a three-year-old ­Bricco della­ Bigotta, a Barbera d’Asti from the ­Braida winery, which pioneered the modern, oak-aged style of Barbera. For this wine, Marina brought an additional set of deep, bowl-shaped glasses and decanted the contents of the bottle to aerate it thoroughly before serving.

Obviously, the frustrations of my previous trip were not going to be repeated here.

FOLLOWING THE CRIES of a rooster and cuckoo clock—and fresh farm eggs with yolks so rich they were almost red—our first morning began with a ride through Monferrato—a low-profile area of Italy and thus a blessedly untouristed one.

As we began to pedal, I was immediately reminded of the attractions of riding in such a region. There was a simultaneous feeling of density and spaciousness: The entire landscape was laced with a network of one-lane roads, which could almost qualify as bike paths except for the three-wheeled mini-pickups that came along every so often. Each few miles brought a village with an ancient church, a choice of cafés, and streets so narrow that we were in danger of bumping our shoulders on the corners of the buildings. Perhaps the biggest surprise for an American was the pervasive public attention to aesthetic detail: carefully tended flower boxes, graceful figurines topping gateposts, municipal fountains with water streaming from sculpted animals’ mouths. There seemed to be no limit to the care the inhabitants were willing to lavish on their surroundings.

Despite such evidence of humanity, the towns themselves seemed almost deserted. The area was completely ­agricultural, with almost every inch cultivated to grapes (on incredibly steep slopes) or flat fields of corn and wheat, with hay rolled up into enormous wheels. Occasionally we passed old people hoeing, scything, bundling branches, or carrying bushels by hand, their sleeveless, sinewed arms bulging below straw hats and head scarves. The net effect of such impressions—bolstered, again and again, by the ancient architecture—wasn’t so much one of nostalgia as of traveling backward in time.

In the town of Santa Maria della Versa, a small roadside sign, emblazoned with a crossed knife and fork, led us to an osteria off the main street. Its proprietor—a middle-aged, mustachioed man who didn’t blink at our spandex outfits—offered a choice between a wood-beamed dining room and an outdoor patio with a weeping willow over a lush lawn. Opting for the latter, we began knocking back prosciutto­ and melon, Russian salad (a Piedmontese specialty consisting of white beets, tuna, carrots, and capers), pisarei e faro (small beanlike pasta with legumes and vegetables), and a sharp, flaky, Parmigiano ­Reggiano-like cheese called Grana Padano, made nearby in Lombardy.

The wines were types that I would be hard-pressed to find at home: pinot nero bianco, a straw-colored white made from pinot noir, and bonarda, a slightly spritzy, ruby red made from croatina grapes. Before we started riding again, I took a nap on the lawn.

Photo: Jered Gruber

Photo: Jered Gruber

By evening we found ourselves back in the flatlands of the Po River valley, heading toward our lodging­ for the night: the Castello di San Gaudenzio,­ north of Voghera. Over time, this 15th-century palace has been occupied by such aristocratic families as the Viscontis of Milan; recently restored and expanded into a four-star hotel, it is attentive to period details, most notably suits of armor standing guard in the hallways. Together with the empty, high-ceilinged rooms whose entrances they oversee, the silent knights imparted an air of hauntedness to the accommodations. I wouldn’t have wanted to meet them in the middle of the night, so I stayed in my room after dinner.

Of course, this might have also had something to do with that pinot nero.

THE NEXT DAY we had an appointment with Italian cycling history: We were going to visit the Coppi museum.

Fausto Coppi—“Il Campionissimo”—is one of the most revered figures in the annals of Italian sport. This Piedmontese native emerged from the working class in the 1940s to become the Italian national and three-time world cycling champion, winning two Tours de France and five Giri d’Italia along the way. In his prime, Coppi was locked in a rivalry with Gino ­Bartali, a Tuscan rider with an equally fanatical following. Their contests inspired a sort of civil war, dividing the loyalties of the Italian nation (as they remain divided today) between north and south. The feud was intensified by the fact that Bartali was a church-going Catholic, while Coppi—an ostensibly “modern man” from the north—forsook his family for a doctor’s wife, the fabled Lady in White who bore Coppi’s son and was subsequently banished to Argentina. Coppi himself died at age 41 of ­complications from malaria.

Today the tomb where Coppi is buried, the house in which he was born, and the schoolhouse that he attended as a boy have been made into a museum and reliquary in the village where he lived: Castellania, a 30-mile ride and 1,500-foot climb from our hotel. To find it, we followed signs for the Strade de Fausto e Serse Coppi—the “roads of Fausto” and his brother Serse (who also died young after crashing in a race). When we arrived, we were greeted by Piero Coppi, Fausto’s 77-year-old cousin, who escorted us into the reliquary, decorated with Coppi’s bikes and jerseys—the rainbow stripes of the world champion, the pink jersey of the Giro d’Italia, the yellow of the Tour de France, and the red-white-and-green vestments of the Italian national champion. Next door was Fausto’s tomb, adjoined by a small chapel. It all made one wonder why the word “San” has not been attached to the cyclist’s name.

Piero provided a partial answer. “If Fausto had never met the Lady in White,” he claimed, “he’d still be alive today.” This was an allusion to one of the many speculations about Coppi’s fate—that, because of his controversial moral conduct, he was intentionally­ mistreated for malaria and allowed to die.

Piero rode with us the next day. In his cycling clothes, he resembled the majority of Italian cyclists I’ve seen: gray-haired with a substantial belly but calves like rocks. He said that, until today, he hadn’t ridden his bike in two months. He also said that he no longer drank alcohol—but he had a glass of wine when we ate lunch in a café.

Photo: Jered Gruber

“I thought you didn’t drink,” Larry said.

“Oh,” he answered, “this is just wine.”

The salubrity of the grape was demonstrated that night at a trattoria in Asti. To showcase the various styles of Barbere d’Asti, the stubbled young connoisseur-proprietor presented a succession of eight wines: The first couple, a two-year-old Barbera aged in steel and a three-year-old Titon Superiore L’Aronangia that had spent a year in oval wood casks, were accompanied by salume; robiola with hazelnuts; a zucchini flan with tomato and basil; a spinach tart with herbs; a yellow bell pepper stuffed with tuna, capers, parsley, and anchovies; and carne cruda—raw beef chopped by hand, reportedly attained from cattle so pure that its fat content is lower than that of chicken breast.

Next came a plate of mixed primi, including a clove-laced risotto Barbera and agnolotti with rabbit, beef, spinach, and Parmesan. I’d say that the climax was cinghiale—shoulder of wild boar marinated in Barbera with juniper, cinnamon, rosemary, sage, and soffritto (onion, carrots, and celery), which was perfect with an earthy, extracted four-year-old piano alto Barbera—except that it preceded the course the restaurant is most famous for: a cheese cart including Murizano, moldy Gorgonzola,­ and the prized Castelmagno, only 3,000 wheels of which are made each winter in the mountains near Cuneo.

“We eat it with a chestnut marinated in sugar, water, and grappa,” explained our server, who, upon learning that none of us had tasted a degustif called Barolo Chinato Cocchi, insisted that we try that, too. “After three years in barrel as Barolo wine, it’s blended with spices and aged another seven years,” he said. “It used to be sold in pharmacies and served hot. It’s now considered one of the best things to drink with chocolate.” Applying endemic Italian drama, he summed up its appeal by proclaiming: “It gives power.”

Photo: Jered Gruber

Photo: Jered Gruber

THAT WAS A good thing, seeing as how it was well after midnight when we left the table, and the next day brought our sternest test yet: a 70-mile ride capped by a 2,000 foot-climb into the Alta Langhe, the highest foothills of the Maritime Alps. Things began reasonably enough, with a downhill start from our hotel and only a couple of 300-foot bumps before a slightly stiffer test to the fifth-century village of Mombaruzzo (where Larry stopped to buy a bag of almond cookies). After an 800-foot climb to Alice Bel Colle, we coasted downhill to Strevi and a picnic lunch of onion foccaccia, tuna packed in olive oil, and a sparkling red dessert wine, Brachetto d’Acqui. A relatively flat digestion interval took us 10 miles to the mineral-bath mecca of Acqui Terme, after which came the serious business: a switchback climb to Roccaverano, 2,000 feet up in the clouds.

As I crossed the bridge over the river that announced its onset, I discerned a different feeling in the air. We were now entering­ a subalpine zone with a mountainous atmosphere. Vineyards were less numerous here, replaced by hazelnuts and that Italian rarity, undeveloped forest. Villages clung to the side of cliffs, and farmhouses were made of stone (not stucco)­ with stacks of firewood outside. As I began the climb, a dog suddenly charged out from behind a fence, apparently intent on ­sampling my ankle; he pulled a U when I squirted him with water from my bottle, but he’d provided a dose of adrenaline, and my pace began to pick up.

Soon I was looking down onto the flat farm patchwork, intersected by the chalk-green river that wound through the ­valley. Purple, white, and yellow wildflowers, with correspondingly colored butterflies, appeared along the road, and the peaks above were obscured by fog, which dropped the air temperature by 20 degrees. I found myself growing invigorated, injected with the elixir of the mountains, pedaling harder and going faster as the altitude increased. I didn’t feel that I was climbing the mountain as much as being levitated by it.

As I neared the summit at Roccaverrano, I heard the La Cucaracha horn of the ­support van behind me. “You’re flying!” Heather yelled as the van gunned past me into town.

Photo: Jered Gruber

The plunge down the other side of the mountain culminated in the town of Cortemilia, where we stayed that night at Villa San Carlo. Dinner, prepared by Carlo Zarri—the 47-year-old hotel owner who is also a master sommelier—included asparagus risotto in a crispy Parmesan shell, a vegetable terrine with shaved truffles, green-nettle pasta with hazelnuts, grilled duck breast, and roasted lamb chops. My Australian roommate, Gary, treated the table to a seven-year-old Gaja Barbaresco and a 15-year-old Pio Cesare Barolo from Zarri’s cellar, which has been officially recognized as one of the 30 best in Italy. After decanting and pouring the wines, Carlo himself—a fifth-generation hotelier wearing a double-breasted chef’s jacket with red buttons—sat down at the piano to serenade the room.

Zarri was a friendly, pleasant, easygoing guy—until he set about serving his food, at which point he became extremely intense. Focusing on his work like a raptor, he took 20 minutes to prepare five servings of cheese. He later told us that, as an adolescent, he’d rebelled from the family business, but had eventually agreed to help out for a year, which had turned into two and a half decades.

“The food here is different from valley to valley,” Carlo said of Piedmont. “Fifty years ago, this part of Italy was like Africa. It was a poor region—there were no good roads, so people kept their traditions. Every day they would change the ingredients of the same dish—one day polenta with cheese, the next day polenta with mostarda made from wild grapes, pears, hazelnuts or walnuts, orange rind, and sugar. They ate meat only five or six times a year—chicken or rabbit in summer, game in autumn. They had cow only in winter, but they sold the salami and kept only the liver and lungs.”

“Today,” he mused, “we can get anything we want. But our food is genuine and traditional.” Which, he went on to explain, means that, “It’s 80 percent love.”